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The NS Interview: Ayaan Hirsi Ali
“Islam is exempted from scrutiny – and spreading fast”
By Sophie Elmhirst Published 02 July 2010
You grew up in Africa and then moved to the Netherlands. How did that affect you?
It was my first gateway to western life as it is lived, not the way I read in novels in Kenya.
You have written of your traumatic childhood. Is there anything that you owe your family?
I am grateful to my father for sending me to school, and that we moved from Somalia to Kenya, where I learned English. And that my mother has always been a very strong woman.
Your family still lives within Islam. How do they feel about your atheist life in America?
My brother thinks it is very, very bad that I left Islam. My half-sister wants to convert me back; I want to convert her to western values. My mum is terrified that when I die, and we all go to God, I will be burned.
Do you feel that you belong in America?
I'm finally at home. I feel welcome, I feel free.
Which thinkers have shaped your ideas?
Many: John Locke and John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Hayek, people like Karl Popper. Defenders of individualism.
You defend free speech, yet you're under guard because you criticise Islam publicly. How do you deal with this contradiction?
I'm willing to face the continuous stream of threats. It's not the same as my freedoms being taken away. If I'd gone with the man my father chose, I wouldn't be living the way I want to.
Did you intend to become known for your outspokenness on Islam?
I don't define myself by this subject, I just publish and debate other participants' involvement.
In your book Nomad, you talk about the west's superiority as an objective truth.
Freedom, women's rights, prosperity, stability - by all these indicators, the west is superior. That's not opinion, it's basic fact.
What do you want your work to achieve?
I'd like Muslims to look at their religion as a set of beliefs that they can appraise critically and pick and choose from.
Is there anything you like about Islam?
There are things I don't mind - people praying and fasting because it makes them feel good. But there are all these rules governing men and women. And the political dimension: jihad.
What ideology does appeal to you?
Liberal capitalism is not perfect, but compared to the other isms it's far superior.
Do you ever worry that your ideas contribute to mistrust or intolerance of Muslims?
I don't think so. What I do is not create division, but expose the reasoning and the activity, and how persistently it violates human rights.
When you talk about a clash of civilisations, are you trying to be provocative?
To provoke debate, yes. Islam is spreading very fast. Westerners exempt Islam from scrutiny.
You are sympathetic towards Christianity, but doesn't it also have its unpleasant extremes?
Christianity has gone through a process of reformation. Islam has not.
Isn't that an idealised view, given the recent abuse scandals and so on?
If I idealised it, I would be a Christian. Are all religions equally bad? Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins say so. I beg to differ. It doesn't blind me to Christianity's imperfections.
You say western feminists are soft on Islam. Can't Muslim women fight their own battles?
Some Muslim women will say, "You're patronising," but the ones who are locked up, who are forced to wear the burqa, they will be grateful.
Do you support Europe's moves to ban the veil?
No. I'm against the veil because of the idea that a woman is responsible not only for her sexuality but also for that of men.
How do you view the recent events around the aid flotilla sent to Gaza?
Turkey provoked Israel. It is moving away from the west and slowly Islamising.
What are your hopes for Britain's government?
I really hope it will be strong on national security and push back the Islamisation of the UK.
Is there anything you regret?
I regret that Theo van Gogh was killed.
Do you vote?
I just voted in Holland, for the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy [VVD]. Their philosophy is comparable to David Cameron's.
Do you have a plan?
When I took the train from Germany in 1992, I didn't know where my life would lead me, but I'm really glad that I did it.
Are we all doomed?
No. Things can always be improved - and it's worth trying.
Defining Moments
1969 Born in Mogadishu, Somalia
1976 Settles with family in Kenya, having lived in Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia
1992 Political asylum in the Netherlands
2000 MA in politics, Leiden University
2002 First book, The Son Factory, published
2003 Enters Dutch House of Representatives
2004 Receives death threats after broadcast of Submission, her film with Theo van Gogh
2007 Becomes a permanent US resident
2010 Nomad is published
Tags: Interviews
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92 comments
It seems to me that Miss Hirsi Ali's knowledge about Islam is acquired from secondary sources only.If she had tried to read the Quran and seen what it acutally says and then differentiated how people interpret it. Then she might have seen that Islam and Western thought are not mutually exclusive.On the contrary I always say if Europeans would give up alcohol, pork and promiscuity, they would indeed make very good muslim.Eveything else that Islam asks it believer to practice e.g welfare state, give refuge to asylmseekers, observe women's right, treat everyone equally etc. the europeans have to some extent managed that.
Still very nice for someone to acknowledge Islam is "ok".
To MissLaila. Hirsi Ali's knowledge of Islam is from the primary source of being subjected to Muslim indoctrination and brutality, in her family, from birth. I also wish to ask you if Europeans were to promise to give up alcohol, pork and promiscuity do you think Muslim UK shopkeepers could be persuaded from making vast profits from supplying alcohol, pork kebabs, and selling soft-pornographic magazines?
We know that Hirsi Ali is brave !!
Many Muslim take heart in challenging those who criticise or try to open honest debate on Islam's need for reform.
In the wider Islamic world these criticisms are not even possible.
So in the free world these things should be discussed.
Especially now that Islam is asserting itself and at the same time expects to go without criticism, for behaviour that has no place in the modern world.
Reform
What Hirsi Ali is calling for, as are so many others, is the end to blind submission in Islam, and for the need for Muslims to select the passages which would help them to live in the modern world and leave behind those that don't.
Totally suited
Of course Muslims would argue Islam is totally suited to the modern world. But the Saudi and the Egyptians clerics are arguing over an old Hadith that says women should breastfeed unfamiliar men, so that they can come into contact with them in their own homes. The clerics are arguing, whether or not, the women should allow their breast to be suckled [as Aisha did in the Hadith with unfamiliar men], or offer these men their breast milk! And of course Aisha had no children, so no breast milk. Doubtful they asked the women!
Muslims can't argue that Islam is suited to the modern world, and uphold, relations with small children in marriage. And the list goes on!
One of the reason people don't criticise Islam more openly, is out of fear. Muslims though might take this silence or censor as agreement ~ when it is not!
There is a need to bring Islam into the modern world ~ and it needs to be said.
Here's to Hirsi Ali's courage!
Liberal capitalism has ravaged Africa and the South. This presumably is the freedom and prosperity she talks of. So she's a slightly unorthodox neo-con. Big deal.
Trouble is that will sell in the west, so....
freedemocrat please continue to point out the weaknesses of muslim's in this country.I have been urging my fellow muslim's to stay away from alcohol,pork and especially pornogrphy.
Maybe you can come to my local and explain the dangers to all.
(my local masjid)
Actually believing in democracy, secularism, women's rights and gay rights and being Muslim appear to be totally mutually exclusive.
Muhammed, what attracts all of the woemn you claim are converting? Is it the rigorous intellectual debate about, say, whether they can drive during menstruation? The job opportunities in the basket case economies of the Muslim world? The chance of becoming one of 4 wives and to be ("mildly") beaten if she refuses to have sex with her husband on demand? Maybe the joy of covering yourself up in a black bin liner from head to toe?
If you want rigid, unchanging, unthinking certainty about everything, Islam is clearly the religion of choice. For anyone with an ounce of creativity or doubt (and who likes wine MissLaila, and pork and bacon sandwiches, and doesn't think having consensual sex with another person is evil or immoral), Islam is a journey back to the Stone Age.
Get a life. You are only here once
"Live and let live" the first comment said. Well, that's better than "pay a special tax (to remain Christian) or you won't live" which is correct Islamic doctrine.
@freedemorat:
Ms Ali's knowledge about Islam is how it is/was interpreted in her country or culture. Thus the version of Islam she knows is a distortion and not the actual moral teaching that God recommands to follow. Take the simple vers from Quran "There should be no compulsion in religion"(2:256). If muslims would follow this, would there be any terror in the name of religion? Same goes for your observation about muslim shopkeepers selling pornographic material, alcohol ect. Isnt it sad, they call themselves muslim but do the oppsite than what a muslim should do?
@Rob,
What Islam offers is moral guidence and rules for social peace and prosperity. So tell me, how has promiscuity (lets say since the last 30year) contributed to a peaceful society? How does excessive alcohol benefits the individuals and the society as whole?